Take off your invisible marketing sunglasses

byHildeRegine

2.2K followers

3 years ago

Today I will share with you some insights I took with me from a business seminar with a keynote speaker I went to through my work many years ago.I learned many important lessons that I want to share with you today. Some of you may even have been to this seminar yourself.In that case I am sure you got many new revelations about others and yourself.

The sunglass man

I was on a Seminar with Brian Klemmer - A keynote speaker. He died in 2011, but left a huge legacy behind him. The seminar was called personal mastery. In addition I got an extra seminar for leaders in sales. I never forget this seminar, because I learned so much about my sunglasses. Or more precisely my unconscious green sunglasses. Sunglasses we all are wearing without knowing it.That is why he is often remebered as the Sunglass Man.

Here are some things I took with me from his seminars that I want to share with you.

Our invisible colourful marketing sunglasses

As Brian says we are all born with a set of green sunglasses that we are born with and wear throughout our lives. We eat with them, speak with them, sleep with them, hear with them and act with them. Most people are not aware that they even do have a pair of green sunglasses on and even less aware of the fact that we have a multiple layer of sunglasses in all sorts of coulours hidden in our unconcisous that is preventing us from seeing solutions and that affect our behaviour and feelings.

The $10.000 dollar bill exercise

To illustrate this we had to do an exercise. We had to pair up with someone we did not know from before. One of us was A and the other was B.We had to take a role and play it as well as we could. We had to be 100% the role we were given.

A got a task - to get out any bill from the pocket and pretend it was a 10.000$ bill. He was told that with this bill he was able to put food on his table, keep his house and car. That his task was to protect this money. If he failed to protect them he would loose it all. His task was to protect his money.

B got another task - Unless he get hold of the $10.000 dollar bill that A have he will fail. He will not be able to put food o the table for his family, your kids will starve, you loose your house and car. You need to put your heart and passion into getting these $10.000. His task was to get hold of A`s money.

10 Minutes exercise

Then we got 10 minutes to do the exercise. It was a very eyeopening experience. For 10 minutes you could literally feel the adrenalin was pumping in the room. I think it was 300 people there or so. Just imagine it - the high voice volume, the knuffing and puffing, enthusiasm, desperation and passionate conversations and arguments that took place. I remember hearing the sentence: "I need the money" at least 100 times from different persons in the room.

Sunglass detectives

Then we got 2 minutes to detect what sunglasses we had been wearing. To look at our behavoiur and feelings and what caused this behaviour. What were you focusing on?

What I leaarned from this exercise was that everyone was more or less focused on their own needs.

Brian asked us a question after this experience using an allegory to sex:

: Do you think you will get more or less sex by focusing on your own needs?

Take off your Green marketing sunglasses

Taking off your green sunglasses is a personal development process, but can also be used in marketing.

We all have a set of green marketing sunglasses and a set of unconscious beliefs as marketers and customers we do not even know we have

The trick is to discover them when you cannot see them or even know they are there. We have to dig deep into our feelings and behaviours to discover them.

That is why the abundance mindset and giving value have become so important in marketing lately, because psychographics play an important role for us as marketers and in our customers behavoiur. We need to discover the unconscious sunglasses of our customers as well as our own.

I hope you find this useful. Maybe you will start to become a sunglass detective too? This seminar had a huge impact on me at the time and I have found it very useful in my own life. I am very grateful that I got the chance to attend to it while he was still alive. It changed in many ways my perspective on things. I am still searching for unconscious sunglasses I do not know I have.

The riddle of 5 birds on a limb

Brian gave us this riddle:

5 birds were sitting on a limb of a tree

3 birds decided to fly off

How many is left on the limb?

If you can solve this riddle write your answer below.